The war with the Samnites continues for Rome. Consul Quintus Fabius Rullianus avoided the Smanites attempts to ambush him, forcing the Samnites to offer a fair fight instead, before the Rest of the Romans could get there.

For the most part this is a smallish set piece battle. The only real "twist" is the Romans have sent off some Hastatii from the XIVth legion to flank the Samnites. When they arrive this has some additional cohesion implications for both sides.

For the purposes of soling this battle, I assumed the orders to the flanking force were pretty vague. "Hey you! Go flank those guys..." I followed the standard rules for their time of arrival, but instead of choosing the location (there are three choices) I rolled for that (equal chances) when they arrived. This made their arrival a bit more mysterious for the Romans as well.

Anyhow, on to the festivities. All directions will be form the point of view of the Romans to keep things manageable.

Turn 1:

Your standard early battle formalities. Some cavalry duking it out on the left, and some skirmishing in the center while the lines moved toward one another.

Turn 2:

The flanking force arrives already in the entry location on the right (right near Cannae on the map.) The morale effects were pretty light. I attempted momentum with that tribune, just in case it worked, If it had, they could have plunged into the backs of the Samnites legions. Unsurprisingly, it failed, and the Samnites were able to reorient two of their double legion stacks to deal with the incursion.

The main lines did come together though, with some LI/Velites escaping, and some being crushed between them. This broke up some of the formation of the Samnite van and Roman Hastatii. So controlling them would be more piecemeal from here out.,

Turn 3:

With the Samnite line only one line deep on the right, it was time to move. The Romans pushed hard, and while the Hastatii took a beating, the Principes were able to finish the job. The Samnite line was all but broken. The cavalry battle was inconclusive on the other side, and on the left of the infantry line the Romans were a bit more cautions, the Samnites did after all have both lines to use on that side. The Samnites detailed to stop the flanking force did so with flying colors though.

Turn 4:The Samnite left was in shambles, and both sides had routing troops streaming back from one end of the line to the other. The Roman right which had been wheeling strongly toward the center had to wheel somewhat less aggressively as the Samnite detachment was already returning and if they continued to wheel would hit their own flanks while they were trying to roll up the Samnite line.

The left side of the line was a bloodbath for all involved and it would be hard to say who was winning on that side. But the cavalry fight wrapped up in the Roman's favor, so despite the infantry stalemate, things on the left were looking dire for the Samnites.

Turn 5:The return of the Samnite detachment slowed things down on the right. Overall the Romans had done more damage on that side but it had more or less stabilized.

The left was another story though, the Roman cavalry came sweeping in and blasted apart the Samnites from behind on the left. Now it was the turn of the Roman legions on that side to push hard. As both sides were hurting, and the line was made up of a decent chunk of depleted units, this proved costly for everyone involved. And in the end, the Samnites fled the field. Before Fabius' activations it was looking like a moderate Roman win, but he managed to successfully rally quite a few fleeing Roman's. So the finally points (which I didn't actually record) ended up more lopsided that the battle would indicate. ~130ish to ~50 or so. But a good forty+ points of Romans had just been rallied,.

Notes/Questions:-This was a blast, a nice small battle to break out the Roman legions. The mix of leaders makes the two sides play quite differently.- While important, the flanking maneuver was not the end fo the road for the Samnites. Though if the associated Samnite TQs cohesion rolls had gone worse it could have been.-Triarii doctrine question: Once one of the conditions in 9.71 are met, do the Triarii remain "freed" for movement?

Thanks for writing all of these great battle reports Ryan. I've always liked the Samnites, and root for them during any battles in which they appear. My two year old son Sam is often referred to by me as a "dirty Samnite" when he is doing something negative...

I've always liked the Samnites, and root for them during any battles in which they appear.

Stay tuned then, I just finished setting up Sentinum. So more Samnites (among others). It's big enough I'll have to actually take some notes if I want to write it up afterwards.

EDIT: Due to unexpected house guests, Sentinum has been put on hold. The dining room table was needed, and this one was too big to do in a day and take notes so I can do a decent job writing it up.I have a room for this sort of thing in this (new) house, but not enough table space yet. Odds are it won't get put back out until September. But I do want to play it. It looked cool all set up.

On turn 4 of this battle now. Fun to read yours as its playing out just about opposite of mine. The score is Romans have a whopping 47 pts missing from their army while the Samnites are at 22. Plus the Roman reinforcements haven't even shown up. Not counting the Romans out though as the main lines are just getting down to business now after much skirmishing and distracting.

Just played this as the Samnites. My opponent's flanking force came in on turn 2 and did a lot of damage. It definitely depends on your rolls. The recovery is also big for the Romans. We played that all units get to recover, even ones adjacent to enemies, but it could be argued that they shouldn't be able to recover. Still, a fun scenario. Since it's pretty straightforward, this wouldn't be a bad intro scenario.